


Don't get offended if I seem absent-minded

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, Trauma assistance dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Margaery's parties are all the same, in Willas' experience.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This one might be just a little different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't get offended if I seem absent-minded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadeddiva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Annie!
> 
> Title from _This Modern Love_ by Bloc Party

Margaery's parties are all the same, in Willas' experience. They involve hiring out a ballroom in some of the big hotels, because she doesn't want to be tied completely to the old Tyrell brand. Everyone is exquisitely dressed - often black tie, as with tonight - and they all stand around, looking slim and elegant and glamorous. 

Willas always feels a little out of place - oh, his suit is exquisite, sleek and black with a deep green dickie and a sharp white shirt, and his shoes are mirror-shined, but the wheelchair kind of ruins the overall effect of the thing. If he was standing, he'd be taller than most of the men here, and the same slim Hightower build as Loras, but instead he's sitting, and the lack of strenuous exercise means he's developing a pot belly just like Dad's. He wouldn't mind - it's never an issue at Highgarden events, or at the mixers at the stables - but Margie's guests have a tendency to stare at anyone who isn't tall, slim, elegant, and upright.

Oh well. At least he looks almost as stinking rich as he is, which is richer than just about everyone else here, so he doesn't need to worry about them judging him too harshly in that regard.

Margie herself is swanning about in a backless, structured, angular number, gold-shimmered green and worth as much as some of Willas' horses. She's good at this, the whole social butterfly thing, and the slew of awards she's won this past few months at the various fashion weeks means that everyone is  _dying_ to befriend her. She practically feeds on praise and adulation, and Willas can't remember the last time he saw her look so happy - she's shimmering just as much as her dress from the sheer joy and pride, and it's good to see. She's worked hard for this, just as hard as he'd worked for Goldengrove and Garlan worked for the company and Loras worked for all those Grand Slams, and she deserves tonight.  _  
_

"You must be proud," some slinky-gowned model with a slick of blonde hair says, setting herself on the edge of the table at his side and crossing her legs. Her skirt splits, revealing toned muscle and sharp shin bones, and it's not until he notices the heavy gold bracelet with the lion's head clasp on her skinny wrist that he figures out who she is - Myrcella Baratheon,  _the_ rich-girl runway model of the moment, who walked for Marg in Braavos and blew the whole world away. 

"You must be drunk," he tells her. "I'm not your usual fare, Cella. A little mature for your palette, I would have said."

She laughs, a high, practised trill that grates on him but fits with the general false air of Marg's admirers. She doesn't look much like the girl who was flower girl at Renly and Loras' wedding, and she sounds it even less, and that's sad, somehow. Then again, Willas danced with Amarys Oakheart all night at Renly and Loras' wedding, but that's out of the question now, so he supposes that change must be natural. Maybe this is just who Myrcella Baratheon with the flowers in her hair was always supposed to grow up to be.

"Mm," she sighs, uncrossing and crossing her legs, the light flashing on the narrow chain of golden antlers around her right ankle. "Maybe my tastes have changed, Doc, you never know."

"Your fiancé might object to your changing tastes, Myrcella. I know mine did."

Well, Willas' fiancée had more objected to his changing perspective than his changing tastes - Amarys was a good woman, and they'd managed to become friends somewhere in the aftermath, but she just hadn't wanted to marry who he'd become after he lost his legs, and he still doesn't blame her for that.

Trystane Martell, however, is openly besotted by Myrcella, and while Willas and Amarys' split had been reasonably amicable he can't imagine Myrcella and Trystane's would be if Trystane were to find Myrcella with another man. Still, maybe that's what she's going for - a blow-out break up would generate inches and inches of in the press, and there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

"You didn't used to be so boring," Myrcella says, slipping off the table. "You won't even flirt with me - what use is that?"

She slinks away, and Willas is left wondering what in the world was the point of that - he doesn't think about it for too long, though, because it's easier not to. It's easier to just let things happen at Margaery's parties, because more often than not, nothing means anything.

"Myrcella Baratheon isn't used to being turned down," Garlan says, sitting down beside him with a grin. Leo, Willas can see, is being dragged around by Margie - Leo's so small she manages to stick out in just about any company, so it's easy to watch Garlan watch her. It's nice, too, because Garlan and Leo still look at one another like newlyweds, even four years and two kids later, and Willas likes seeing how happy the others are. 

"She's not my type," Willas says easily, taking the glass of orange Garlan holds out to him with a smile. "She never has been - you know my type is a little sturdier, Gargoyle." 

"Don't let Amarys hear you calling her  _sturdy_ , Will," Garlan laughs. "Come on, there has to be someone here you'd look at twice - they're not all models and serial dieters."

Willas rolls his eyes, but he looks around the room just to humour Garlan all the same - he can't imagine meeting the person of his dreams at a party of Margaery's, but who knows what the gods might have in store?

He sees Arianne Martell, who he  _knows_ hates Margie but who never misses a chance to make society connections - Willas likes Arianne, really, she just intimidates him far more than she should, given that he remembers her from school, and he wouldn't trust her as far as he could throw her. As usual, she's surrounded by an army of women from down Dorne, all of them striking and fabulously attired, all of them not at all Willas' type if only because they could snap him in two.

His cousin Desmera and Amarys are here, too, both ruled out for obvious reasons, and they have their usual army of beautiful, bored looking followers around them - Loras is usually with them, him and Renly, and Amarys' brothers Torwin and Arys, and they're Margie's go-to group of friends. Any photos of her spilling out of nightclubs usually involve Dessie and Amarys, too, the three of them linked together, practically inseparable, which was  _fun_ in the rough few weeks after Willas and Amarys broke up.  _Really_ fun. 

There are little gangs all over - Edmure Tully looking delightful in navy-blue, with his delicate little wife on his arm, both of them sipping something bright pink and laughing at whatever it is Pat Mallister is saying, or the gang of Lannisters and Mallisters and other flashy heiresses from the West End who swarm around Myrcella - but no one really catches Willas' eye. He's used to that - he met Amarys when she was wearing ratty old jeans and a jumper of Tor's, mucking out stables with her ponytail sticking to her sweaty neck, and he all but fell in love with her right then and there, after all. Seeing all these people so dressed up makes him nervous, it always has, and-

"Hello," he says, holding out a hand to the  _enormous_ dog sniffing at his shiny, shiny shoes. "What's your name, pretty girl?"

The dog - wolf? She's certainly big enough - huffs, and lifts her head to sniff at his palm. She's got a tooled leather collar around her neck, and the neat silver plate on the side announces her to be  _Lady._ She's neatly groomed, clean and trimmed without being primped, and Willas doesn't remember the last time he saw a dog so healthy, aside from his own dogs back at Goldengrove.

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady," he says, grinning when she turns and rubs her furry cheek into his hand. "Who do you belong to?"

"Me," someone says, and Willas and Garlan both spin to look behind them, and Willas can't help it when his jaw drops.  _My gods,_ he thinks,  _she's beautiful!_ "I'm so sorry," the woman says, all slow-tumbling dark red curls and wide blue eyes. "She's not usually like this - she's usually so well behaved, she doesn't run off  _ever-"_

The woman - gods, she must be nearly Garlan's height, nearly as tall as Willas was before he ended up in the damn chair - blushes and clears her throat, and the beautiful dog happily trots around Willas' chair and settles on her haunches at the woman's feet. 

"Sansa Stark," she offers, burrowing her fingers into the dog's ruff rather than holding out a hand in greeting. "I'm a friend of Margie's - you must be her brothers."

"What gave us away?" Garlan asks, smiling as charmingly as ever - the four of them look so alike that no one ever has to ask, and it seems that this time is no different from the others. "Please, join us - Garlan and Willas. The pleasure is ours."

"I really am sorry," she says, taking the seat opposite Willas and keeping her hand in the dog's ruff. "She doesn't usually leave me. She's usually so well behaved."

"She wasn't causing any trouble," Willas promises, leaning forward to scratch under Lady's chin. "She's a beautiful dog - what breed is she? I don't recognise it."

"Northern wolfhound," Sansa Stark says, dipping her head and brushing back a fallen curl. Her smile is shy and sweet, and Willas can't help but notice how full and firm her lips look. He makes sure to look away before she looks up, but he notices, and keeps noticing. "I picked her just for that."

He keeps scratching Lady's neck, wondering why beautiful Sansa Stark has a dog with her at an event like this but not wanting to ask, so he asks something else instead.

"How do you know my darling little sister?" he asks, nudging his glasses up his nose to hide how nervous he is. He can't remember the last time he talked with such a lovely looking woman without her having purposely sought him out because he's rich and they think he can be talked into buying them expensive gifts because he's the sad Tyrell cripple. "Pardon me for saying, but you're not her usual friend."

Sansa's smile is fond this time, and knowing, and she shakes her head. "Margie and I were in the same dorm at college, we just... Hit it off. She's been a good friend to me, over the years."

Margie, under the vapid, glittery exterior,  _is_ a good friend - she was amazing in the wake of the accident, Willas knows that much, so he can only wonder just how Margaery proved her mettle to Sansa Stark. 

"She can be. She's a force of nature when she wants to be."

 

* * *

 

 

An hour into sitting with Margaery's oldest brother, who keeps adjusting his glasses as if he's nervous but who seems to have a way with Lady, and Sansa can't quite figure out if he's flirting with her or not.

No one around the college has flirted with her since the crash - since before it, really, since everyone found out about how Joff was treating her - and she just doesn't know what it feels like anymore. She was with Joff for so long that no one _but_ him ever flirted with her much, so this is all brand new for her.

"Here we are," Willas says, setting a glass of lemonade on the table beside her. "A lemonade for the lady, and an orange for the gent."

Sansa assumes that Willas isn't drinking alcohol either because he doesn't like to for navigational reasons, like Bran, or because he can't because of some cocktail of medications, like herself. Sansa hasn't been able to drink for almost two years, thanks to her anti-anxiety and anti-depressant meds, so she knows how annoying that can be. It's nice, though, to not be the only one who isn't downing shot after shot of whatever the liquor-of-the-month is. When it's just them and their friends from college, Margie doesn't usually drink, but this is her night and Sansa would never  _dream_ of begrudging her this night. 

Margie usually tells her when people try to flirt - but even if she was here, Sansa couldn't ask her about her  _brother._ That would be weird, even by their standards, and thanks to Joffrey, Margaery shared a  _lot_ of weird with Sansa, over the years. It doesn't get much stranger than the aftermath of the crash, than Marg being the one who pulled Sansa out of the canal, after all.

Gods, she hates even  _thinking_ about that night. Best not to. Best to think instead about the really, really good looking man sitting across from her, the man she is very nearlysure is flirting with her. 

"You were saying about your stables, at Goldengrove?"

"The horses are, well, they're horses," he says, and while she can see that he would  _love_ to talk about them, he won't. Arya is like that, sometimes, about her blueprints and plans, but she holds back because she knows Sansa doesn't understand much beyond the basics of things like weight distribution and new alloys for steelwork. Willas, Sansa can tell, is bursting with all kinds of fantastically fine detail about the racehorses he breeds, but he's holding back because he isn't sure how into it she is. Which is... Sweet. "It's the land that's worth talking about. Acres and acres of meadows, and peach orchards all around the house - I started them as soon as I bought the place, they remind me of home."

"Highgarden peaches are quite something," Sansa agrees, and for some reason, it doesn't feel like a pointless piece of small talk - Highgarden peaches are the best in the country, famed for a reason, and Sansa has always loved them from the first day Margie had some delivered from home to the dorms. She knows Tyrells, knows that they like talking about Highgarden as much as she likes talking about Winterfell. "Not as good as blood oranges from the Water Gardens, maybe-"

"You wound me, madam," he laughs. "I can't  _believe_ you'd sit with a Tyrell and admit to preferring something  _Dornish_ over something from the Reach."

She laughs with him, and that's easy, too, light in a way that feels unfamiliar now after so much bloody angsting over Joffrey, and Joffrey's treatment of her, and Joffrey's not being convicted, and Joffrey's death. 

Stupid Joffrey. If he hadn't been, well,  _him,_ she might have taken Margie up on some of those invitations to parties at Highgarden, and she might have met sweet, shy Willas before now. It seems a waste that she hasn't, if only because of how easy it is to talk to him.

"I wonder," he says, and when she looks up from the embossed patterns of Lady's collar, he's staring very hard at his glass of orange. "How would you feel about a contest?"

"What sort of contest?" she asks, edging her chair forward, letting go of Lady. It's the first time tonight she's dared to let go, except for a few minutes while she was talking with Uncle Ed, which was when Lady got away, but she doesn't feel like she needs to hold on just right now. 

"I make the most delicious peach crumble," he says, "so I propose that you make your finest blood orange treat, and I'll make my crumble, and we should have a taste test. A baking contest."

She blinks at him, saved from embarrassment by the bright pink blush flooding up his neck and over his cheeks and by the way he looks over his glasses at her.

"You're asking me out to dinner," she says at last. "No one has asked me out to dinner in  _years."_

"Well," Willas says, pushing his glasses up his nose and blushing even harder. "I'm asking, right now. Would you like to go for dinner, Sansa? I'd very much like to take you out."

"Oh," she says, her hand back in Lady's ruff. "Oh, yes, please!"

 

* * *

 

 

Willas hasn't asked a woman out for the first time in a good ten years, so Sansa saying yes is the most glorious relief he's ever known. 

It doesn't really hit him until later that night, when he's sitting in Garlan and Leo's living room with Margie's head in his lap, that he has a  _date._

"Oh my gods," he says, suddenly horrified, because Sansa was dressed so simply and elegantly, in deep blue and pearls, and Willas doesn't know how to match that sort of style unless it's at a black tie event. "What do I wear for a first date?"

Margaery starts to laugh, and Willas doesn't even mind that they'll make fun of him for  _weeks_ for this.


End file.
